I truly hoped that the entrance of Meghan Markle into the royal fold would make the Duchess of Cambridge… different. Like, she would seem more engaged, she would be happier to be seen. That happened immediately before, during and after Meghan and Harry announced their engagement – I had never seen Kate so happy to be photographed, to show her face to photographers, to be seen as engaged and joyful during events (and pap strolls). But like most things, it was temporary. Kate barely turned her face to the cameras today in west London. I don’t know why. This was her first royal event of the year – she visited the Reach Academy Feltham, an academy“that works with the children’s mental health charity Place2Be to help pupils, teachers and parents.”

For today’s event, Kate wore a £299 wool coat by Hobbs, which I think is new-to-us, meaning this is the first time she’s worn this to an event? It’s hard to keep up with Kate’s collection of blue coats though, so this could easily be a repeat. I enjoy the shade of rich navy, and I enjoy the shininess of the buttons. That’s why this coat was chosen: shiny, shiny buttons. Underneath her coat, Kate repeated a maternity-wear Seraphine dress. Also: WIGLET WATCH! I feel like she just velcros that sh-t to the back of her head.

Kate also celebrated her 36th birthday on Tuesday. Like most years, Kate didn’t do anything publicly for her birthday – according to Kensington Palace sources, she was “celebrating privately with [Prince] William and the children…It’s just a quiet celebration at home. No big party.” I believe it. I also believe William and Kate will sneak off and go on holiday, maybe to Mustique, sometime soon.

The last few days have been a little warmer here. Also generally speaking I find that the buildings here are over-heated during winter ( I’m sitting here in a sleeveless top but have a coat and scarf for any trips outside).

Haha! I too suck at Wiglet Watch and also spotted it straight away this time. Sometimes I feel bad for Kate. I can’t imagine being so scrutinized.. I wouldn’t want to turn my face to the cameras either for fear of people judging every line and wrinkle. And now she has the perfection that is Megan Markle to deal with! But then I remember that Kate signed up for this gig with eyes wide open. Also she does very little “work” and gets to live in a palace, wear $1,000 coats and vacation in Mustique. So yeah, the least she can do is smile and wave to the cameras.

What has Meghan done to merit this perfection? No one is perfect, especially not these lazy royals. And the constant comparison is sickening.

I hope these two women will have each other’s backs. KM has no female friends that we know of, MM has a crazy family, W and Harry had to navigate the whole royalty thing without a mother. They need each other.

@bess, I only meant Meghan is superficially “perfect”. She’s a glamorous actress who also has the benefit of years of experience being in the spotlight. I hope she and Kate are friends too! I am all for women supporting each other.
The point of my post was that they are both indeed spoiled assholes and I always remember that when I feel any empathy for them being criticized on gossip sites.

Kate needs female friends who will tell her that she needs a better hair person. That wiglet atrocity should not be happening to someone like her. It’s not Pippa doing her extensions, but allegedly a professional. Maybe Meghan will be the one to help her out. I am sure Meghan uses extensions, but they don’t look budget and are very hard to notice.

MM is far from perfect…even to this American, lol. Kate is just old-fashioned looking. No other way to put it. She is pretty, she looks nicely turned out, but she is just lacking any kind of originality. MM looked awful on Christmas, but I think she looked more herself yesterday…and certainly she looked her age and like most other women in her peer group. Most of us would have no problem snatching up her outfit for ourselves. Who wants Kate’s clothes??? Most of the time, really no one. Very frumpy and boring. JMO.

Also, I feel really bad for her with all of this ‘wiglet watch’ crap.
I lost hair by the handfuls when I was pregnant, both times, and was rather sensitive about it. I would have hated to go through all of that in the public eye, being made fun of.

How do we know how much friends anyone has? Famous or not Famous? We can’t say that Kate has no female friends or friends at all. We don’t see her every moment of everyday.
I found the “they all need each other” sweet in the sea of negativity that every royal posts turns into now a days.

What do you think of Meghan’s extensions? She obviously has them and I think she needs to get them redone, cause they look stringy recently.
And Kate’s job there is not to wave to the cameras. I get that Meghan is better with that. She had to be comfortable with that. And I am no kate fan, but it is so amazing how she gets beat up and Meghan gets a 100% pass from so many here.

Part of her job *is* to negotiate a (at the very least!) cordial relationship with the press. She and William often fail to even acknowledge their existence, which is extremely demeaning and not going to buy them any goodwill for the future.

No one is saying she should be stopping to give in-depth interviews at events like this. But she should absolutely be polite FFS. I can’t believe this is even a question.

She needs to wave at the press, or at least look and smile. the press needs some good pictures of her to post/publish at these events, which is how the events draw publicity and recognition. It’s kind of the whole point.

The visits are exercises for her own press. The cameras matter more than the people. Or the cause. I’d love to hear something came of her visits. Planned event. Planned involvement. That never happens. She shows up. More time spent with cameras than actual work. That heads together stuff…. I wish it actually did something. Besides raise money and filter it out as it pleases after taking what it wants 1st.

To be fair Kate is said to be pretentious when she does chat with people at her events and when she doesn’t she Is said to be cold. When someone ask her about george or Charlotte and she answers then she is said to be humble bragging or pretending to be relatable while using the kids for good PR.

No. She’s not damned either way. That’s a weak defense. She shows up. Great. And what then? What is the benefit beyond her own press? What justifies the cost of her outfit, styling, transport, and security. All of which is paid for by taxes. Her patronage even tried to allegedly dump her. Upset over her lack of effort and last minute cancellations. They lose a day to prep for a 45 minute visit.
Now, if she did anything that helped a patronage… donated something. Offered to help organize a findraiser. Or make a casual statement via PR office to remind people of good that needs to be done. Simple acts she doesn’t have to leave her home for it even actually do. Her staff would do it.

Unfortunately, like why she skipped the st. Patrick’s day event she is making a statement. That she shouldn’t be expected to be at these big royal events. That her position needs to be visible. Show a presence of caring about the commonwealth.

My comment is ranty, but here’s why. If anyone else had a job with her level of benefits… And didn’t go to work… can the argument be made of why even show up if not even show up because there will be expectations.

I wonder how often markle will be attacked for working or not working.

I really like the coat. But yes, the fake hair is really obvious here. Might she do better with a shorter hairstyle that would allow for more volume, so she didn’t need to supplement her existing hair?

Love that coat. Navy is her color. Dress is fine but not my favorite.
Don’t get the criticism of her not being happy to be seen. She looks happy with the kids who are the focus here. Who cares if she mugs for the cameras?

All just negativity. These posts are full of negativity about both women, all the women in BRF really.
The men get to make weird faces, weird movements, have Ill fitting trousers, scrowl at the camera etc.
However let MM or KM, make one funny face that camera catches in a split second and we’ll never hear the end of it.
Let them do one tiny movement and it’s 400 comments debating about it.
I love both women, but I can tell they get the butt end of the stick of criticisms.

I honestly think it must suck to be in Kate’s position. She must know that every time she goes out now people say its because she’s trying to outshine Meghan or whatever. I would be annoyed too. I don’t even think she particularly likes doing these events but then to go out and do them while pregnant and still not be given any credit of your own must be a drag.

I like her in bright clothes! This coat is nice in itself but still boring.

That said, I don’t expect her to dress in cutting edge fashion, and I’m fine if her style veers more towards the classic side of things (mine does as well.) But classy =/= boring or outdated or staid or matronly, which is where Kate seems to fall short.

I just think in general she needs to hire a REALLY good stylist, who has experience actually styling people, and I think that would make all the difference in the world.

@Natalie S: that’s exactly what I was going to say. The only time I recall her getting crap for wearing a bright color was because she wore it to the September 11th memorial FFS! The rest of the time, it’s fine.

Wow, this is the first time I’ve ever been able to clearly see the wiglet. It’s not even close to the same color as the rest of her hair today! The color of the coat is beautiful, and she took it off while she was indoors, for once.

This is, like, the third time in a row that she visited with children and NOT ONE SINGLE CHILD is even looking at her. She still has a manic smile on her face, but the CHILDREN are not engaged with her. I’ve said it before, why do they even make her bother? Just let her endlessly shop and go on vacation, and chalk it up to the price of having a monarchy. The forced visits just look painful for the kids to endure.

She has worn Wiglet and post wedding loads of extensions. It’s not about having nice hair. It’s about volume. Sometimes a stylist will add it. I’ve been a bridesmaid and we all got extensions to pull off the hairstyle. And I have lots of thick hair.
But for sure. Kate during dating years had done hair. Then at engagement and wedding her hair tripled in volume.

She does have lovely real hair and often people get them to have longer/fuller hair. I have no problem with her or anyone else wearing a wiglet but she created an issue out of this when she instructed Kensington Palace to send out a press release denying hair extensions when a tabloid printed a photo very clearly showing where the wiglet was glued to her real hair – they said it was a ‘childhood scar’. Plus her former hairdresser is on record as saying that she got extentions as he did them for her – thats why she stopped using him.

With the resources she has at her disposal, why can’t she hire a decent hairdresser who can blend them properly.

That wasn’t a Wiglet. Her hair was blowing up In volume during that. It was after the wedding. Silver dress.
And it might have been a real scar. It’s only been lightly spoken of her being a bit sick as a child, but nothing more.

What stands out about that period of time was so many issues went unchallenged or addressed by KP, but this 1 was directly. Everyone was more confused this was what she had her press team counter.

Last time Kate looked for the cameras with huge smiles was the tour of showing William what he’s missing.
Now… I would bet someone is asking them to step up or things will look bad. Meghan getting great press.

Also, someone is mentioning reducing her clothing budget. Because that coat costs much less than what she usually spends on a coat. And she is recycling it just as she recycled the coat she wore to church. A good start, thank goodness there’s a holiday coming up.

Is it me or has her posture gotten worse? It looks like she has a hump in some of the pictures. I actually quite like the coat, especially the colour. Hate the dress and matchy-matchy shoes and the ridiculous hair though. Oh well, at least she took off her coat.

+70000000 damn I CAN NOT STAND the self-righteousness of people who are flat-out wrong. It is so obviously teased, natural hair. She has always had thick hair. This all started because several years ago at one of her first events someone mistook a damn scar on her head for the edge of hair extensions. Also, CB, this is the third time she’s worn this dress at an event.

I have no problems with celebs wearing extensions and wiglets. Lots of other royal women wear them, especially for tiara events.

What I have a problem with, is people like you going on the attack and insisting that NATURAL HAIR. No. Look at photos and videos of Kate pre-wedding. This is not her natural hair. And there is nothing wrong with that.

I think it’s part of her image though, she is always described as being “immensely tall” – she is 5’9 I think so fairly tall but the sky-high heels make her towering. She very very rarely wears flats and then only if they are runners. It’s her thing, being super tall.

And they also lengthen her legs. I’ve said before I am immensely jealous of her body structure because I am super short-waisted. She is long-waisted, and probably appreciates how the heels balance her proportions.

Unfortunately for us short-waisted people, there is no lengthening the torso, haha!

kate is shorter than 5’ 9”. The media like to exaggerate her height. She is more like 5’ 7” to 5’ 8”. I see the same thing happening with Meghan. The media and internet have this idea that royal women need to be amazons rather than normal height women.

True. My one question to add is…how many of these coats are true maternity coats and not just ‘sized up’ nonmaternity wear? I obviously can’t speak for all, but during my two pregnancies I couldn’t size up because of the change in shoulder width, sleeve length, etc…since my growth was mostly belly (and chest unfortunately lol) I *had* to do maternity.

I could be wrong but I don’t think Hobbs even does maternity wear, so I think this is just a regular coat. She does have at least two actual maternity coats by Seraphine, but she seems to be able to make normal-sized coats work most of the time during her pregnancies.

There was some discussion that the mustique holiday had already happened, and that was why Charlotte started school later than the rest of her class. I’m not sure the Doolittles would have settled for that short of a vacay though.

Really nicknames…. They were in Norfolk weekend before celebrating her birthday with friends and family. She also doesn’t have a tan. And with zika virus still going i doubt they went. They haven’t gone there for a couple of years now.

There is nothing wrong with wearing wiglets/extensions. You’d be hard pushed to find a celebrity who never has, including the younger royals I expect. I’ve worn them at times, so have most of the women I know.

Kate wears wiglets and that’s fine! (Apart from when it doesn’t match the colour of the rest of her hair, but this is the first time I’ve seen that happen so obviously). She didn’t suddenly spontaneously start growing an extra pound of hair the moment she got married. There really is no reason for anyone, especially Kate, to be sensitive about it.

There was no such denial. One of the Daily Mail “journalists” spotted her big scar over her left ear at one of her first engagements. They mistoke it for a hair extentions clip and wrote like 6 articles advertizing cheap hair clips in Kate’s name. They linked shops with the exact “Kate proofed” extentions, prices and made up sources.

When it was pointed out that it’s an old childhood scar (very visible through the girlfriend days) the DM dialed back. They then wrote articles about her and Williams scars… because of course

There was a denial within the hour. It was clarified to the DM that it was a scar. I can’t from memory say it was Kensington Palace that issued the clarification but I think it was because of how unusual it seemed that they would say something about hair.

Thank you, so it was not a denial about her using extensions it was more by way of explaining the scar. I am pretty sure BOTH Meghan and Kate wear extensions from time to time. Being an actress/model or princess, and being on show, a lot puts a lot of pressure on the hair. Extensions make the styles look more perfect but they can also damage the hair, probably better to wear a full wig. I am still hoping Meghan will go natural.

If my hair could look like this with a “wiglet,” sign me up! And. meghan doesnt have her natural hair, and probably has extensions. Why is there no mockery of her straightening her hair?
BTW, I loved Kate’s wild hair when they were in the tropics once and I love Meghan’s natural curly hair. I have fine, blonde, wavy hair, and I hate it.

I can’t speak for Meghan, but I think we both have similar natural hair…it is unruly so the only way to tame it is to straighten it…Like most women in the world you have to style your hair the best way that suits you.

She’s visiting a school and wears high shoes and a short dress. Her style is so ‘dressy’, she is just no good at putting together separates or non-dressed-up non-court-shoes look. When I think of all the labels, styles and choices available to her….I could weep.

Her ‘dressy’ style is typical of the middle class sloany type’s work uniform. I have worked with many girls/ladies who come from that background who dress like this. She dresses the same way a lot of her peers do.

Have said before that she has some lovely individual pieces but neither she or her ‘stylist’ can put them together to create a good look.

I think this is fair criticism, not that anyone cares what I think. I hated Meghan’s palazzo pants yesterday, but they weren’t jeggings, thank goodness. I think Kate would have been more appropriate for a school in slim pants with some cool boots, a sweater like Meghan had on, and this coat, but not buttoned up to her chin.
I would love to dress Kate. I think she has a good body for clothes, very easy to dress, and just looking on Pinterest, there are thousands of outfits that would look great on her.

I don’t know much about hair extensions. To me she doesn’t need them if indeed she is wearing them. She has very thick hair and the last thing she needs is more hair. My hair is very thick and when I go to the hairdresser she snips a little off the bottom and then goes crazy with the thinning shears.

Kate has never been held accountable to anyone or anything except Carole. No wonder she blunders about. It would make an interesting case study on how to retard an individual’s development. I wonder how she got through university.

Uni – BRF connection. The woman cannot string a natural and comprehensive sentence together. The first married-in woman in the BRF with a uni degree. From St Andrew. Lol. Hahahaha! Wife to the future King. Hahaha. Can’t stop. Diana at 19 could speak better and more naturally. Kate’s now 36. WTF.

I think she looks fine. It is a typical Kate outfit. She seems comfortable with coats, dresses, heels etc and is unlikely to change now. She seemed to interact nicely with the children who were the focal point of the visit so no criticism from me there. I agree with those who say she needs to cooperate with the media a bit more. A simple smile and a”good morning” would cost nothing. Camilla and Sophie usually acknowledge the media politely and get on with their work.

I like this navy coat much better than the one she wore a month ago. I think because the buttons are closer together. Boring shoes as usual. The dress is OK. The hair is a fail and I don’t like her eye makeup.

It’s a perfectly nice outfit. And TBH I rather respect her for being herself and not immediately trying to copy the shiny new thing on the block – there have always been shiny new things on the block, and eventually, they face pitfalls and the bloom comes off the rose. And Kate has great legs – she does the natural thing when the waist is expanding: shifts the attention to her other great asset.

I think she’s trying to create a timeless, consistent “look” like the Queen — basically the same silhouette over and over again in different colors and slightly different fabrics — so that years and decades from now, she won’t look dated in photos, but it ends up aging her. I kind of see what she’s doing, but it’s just not working. Not at her age, and not in 2018.